Coca-Cola just wants to Open Happiness around the world, in keeping with its ongoing marketing theme, including rolling out a Valentine's Day video this week that was shot in New Zealand to thank its multitude of fans. It's just that global consumers haven't been as happy lately to open a Coke.

A slowdown in sales in Europe and China joined essentially stagnant sales in the United States to undermine Coke's fourth-quarter results. Global sales volume rose just three percent even as the beverage giant's earnings rose by 13 percent during the period.

Ongoing struggles in Europe were a main drag, with volume falling by five percent. Even sales in China, another key market, fell by four percent as Chinese consumers increasingly feel crimped. Meanwhile, the U.S., pushing an anemic economic recovery, yielded just a one percent sales gain during the quarter, though CEO Muhtar Kent said on Tuesday's earnings call that the American market "could get better."Continue reading...

The Old Spice Man is no longer on a horse, but he's got a few other creatures at his back.

The latest W+K effort by director Tom Kuntz for the P&G-owned brand promises unbridled (yet elegant) animal magnetism with The Wild Collection, a trio of manly new scents: Wolfthorn, Hawkridge and Foxcrest. The tagline, naturally, is "Answer the smell of the wild."

Watch the first two spots, featuring tuxedo-clad gents and their wolf and hawk companions, along with their social messaging, below. Update: According to Ad Age, the Wolfthorn spot will run during the Super Bowl — but only in Alaska, home to America's biggest wolf population.Continue reading...

In an unusual move by a major brand, CPG giant Nestlé responded this week to a $5 million U.S. class action suit over trans fats in its frozen pizza brands by posting a video on YouTube that pushed back against the claims.

The suit, filed by Katie Simpson of San Diego, Calif., claims that Nestle’s frozen pizza brands—DiGiorno, Stouffer’s, and California Pizza Kitchen—are a danger to public health because they contain trans fats. The ingredients are legal in U.S. packaged goods, though the state of California, New York City and Philadelphia have banned their use in restaurants.

"Katie has two young children and she likes to make pizza for them, and all kids love pizza," her attorney, Greg Watson, told ABC's Good Morning America. "It shouldn't have a toxic food additive that's been banned all around the world."Continue reading...

It’s been slightly more than a year since Coca-Cola failed quite publicly in attempting to help fight climate change — an effort that made plenty of consumers unhappy with the beverage company's embrace of a controversial political cause.

But Coke hasn't backed down, continuing its partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to help keep the Arctic ice intact and protected from melting — and help save its iconic polar bear.

To help the cause, Coke will hand over $4 million to the WWF for its Arctic Home project over the next three years. Further, 300 million Coke products will feature the image of a mother polar bear and her two cubs, according to a press release from the nonprofit Responding to Climate Change.Continue reading...

The Keebler Elves may make some fine crackers and cookies inside their massive treehouse, but Kraft Foods is hoping to force the Kellogg-owned Keebler and Sandies to find a new way to keep their products from going stale.

Kraft filed suit in Chicago federal court Wednesday with the claim that Kellogg “improperly uses one of its patents,” Reuters reported.

Following the US TV debut of its anti-obesity campaign on cable news networks Monday night, Coca-Cola revealed its new anti-obesity commercial in primetime broadcast TV, with the "Be OK" 30-second commercial (watch below) debuting on FOX's American Idol Wednesday evening and shared on Twitter. According to the Associated Press, this latest commercial will also run before the Super Bowl on CBS.

The spot aims to debunk notions that a can of Coke is high-calorie, with the message that one can of Coke "= 140 happy calories to spend on extra happy activities: 25 minutes of letting your dog be your GPS + 10 minutes of letting your body do the talking [shown over dancing] + 75 seconds of laughing out loud + 1 victory dance. Coca-Cola: 140 calories."Continue reading...

The Coca-Cola Company on Monday evening began airing a two-minute spot (watch below) on U.S. cable news networks. The subject, in a first for the company: America's obesity debate, in a bid to defend its brands ahead of looming beverage size controls in New York City and Cambridge, Mass.

The world's biggest beverage company debuted the "Coming Together" commercial during a prime-time ad buy on the highest-rated shows on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC "in hopes of flexing its marketing muscle in the debate over sodas and their impact on public health," the Associated Press reported. The theme ties into the company's "Live Positively" and "Open Happiness" campaigns.

"The well-being of our families and communities concerns everyone," Coca-Cola describes the spot. "And finding a solution will take continued effort from all of us. Watch to learn more about how we can all make a real difference. At Coca-Cola, we believe when people come together good things happen." A URL at the end of the spot promotes a website, coca-cola.com/cometogether, for more information.Continue reading...

Lipton is going back to basics, in a way, to add new aroma to its U.S. tea business with the first marketing campaign behind its staple black-tea products in America in nearly a quarter-century.

Lipton—the biggest name in tea globally, at over 100 countries and 100 years old—also has held on to its lead in the US CPG dry-tea market for decades, despite essentially having ignored its basic black teas in a marketing sense.

Now, the Unilever-owned brand has launched a campaign aimed at getting US tea consumers to "Drink Positive" (a play on "Think Positive") and to appreciate the uplift that tea can give them. It's also a move to increase the number of tea-drinkers by skewing younger.